I dove under. Light flickered across my closed eyelids as I glided through the water. Feeling reborn, I arose and floated on my back, shielding my eyes from the dazzling sun with a raised hand. Two white birds with black heads and red beaks circled overhead, periodically diving into the water to feed.
Admittedly, this moment of Zen was rare for me; I normally never relaxed at all during production. I’d come straight home from set and work until I fell asleep, sometimes upright, then wake up and do it all over again the next day. Days off were for stressing about the week ahead. I’d spent months shooting in places everyone told me were amazing and never left my room except to walk to the passenger van that couriered us to set. It was better this way; I stayed focused.
But perhaps this time would be different. I could imagine falling under the spell of this island, swimming here in this bay every chance I got, tasting the salt water on my lips. I’d make my therapist proud. Ha! She’d have a field day knowing that at this very moment, basking in the Caribbean sun on a tranquil sea, I could still hear my father’s voice in my head loud and clear, reminding me that I would only ever be average, and if I wanted to get ahead, I’d have to work harder than everyone. A glimmer of guilt smoldered at the base of my skull for all the time I was squandering right now, floating around like a rich girl on holiday. I wasn’t rich, and this wasn’t a holiday. I had far too much riding on this film to fuck it up.
Who was I kidding? I’d already fucked up, and we hadn’t even begun shooting yet.
Cole and I had arrived via chartered jet two days prior, our assistants and his personal trainer in tow. The assistant director and camera department were already on the island prepping with Jackson (as I should have been, if not for the budgetary crisis), but the rest of the cast and crew wouldn’t show up until the following evening. Cole was early by design. He had a tradition of taking the camera crew to a rowdy dinner the night before everyone else arrived on set, ostensibly to thank them for all their preproduction work, but also to ensure he’d be liked well enough to be shot in the most flattering light. He’d do the same thing with the editors before postproduction commenced. No one ever said he wasn’t smart.
I’d worked the entire flight and was so tired when we arrived that all I wanted was to lie on the cool glass floor of my bungalow and watch the fish in the ocean below, but Cole had other ideas.
First up was a tour of the verdant grounds conducted by smiling staff in a souped-up golf cart. Cole rode shotgun while I sat in back, wedged between our assistants. I adored my assistant. Francisco was the one good thing about my job. A twenty-five-year-old Mexican American with a small frame and a big smile, he’d become my confidant over the past three months; it always lightened my mood to gossip with him, trading stories about our terrible past boyfriends and nonexistent current dating lives. He was smart and hardworking, and even better, snarky, well dressed, and teaching me Spanish. He also had a mad crush on Cole’s perennial cool-guy assistant Ben, though neither of us was entirely sure which team Ben was hitting for. Perhaps both, or neither. We’d come to the conclusion that it was likely even Ben wasn’t sure.
We tooled around the small, roughly angelfish-shaped island, dazed by its surreal beauty; the Genesius Resort covered the head end, with the main road running the half mile down the center to the town and port at the tail end. The rocks where I first spied Felicity would be the mouth, and the pool and restaurant area the eye. On the back side where the dorsal fin might be was the golf course, and in place of the ventral fin on the belly side were the beach and over-water bungalows, with the dock on the crown side of the head. Lush greenery climbed up the hill from the beach to the shaded teakwood deck and infinity pool that looked out over the bay, presided over by a giant stone Buddha, behind which sat the spa. The restaurant, bar, and lobby were in an adjoining airy building with a view of the sea.
The setting was beyond gorgeous and all very serene, until Cole commandeered the golf cart and promptly wrecked it into a sand dune. But he owned the resort—the reason we’d been able to reserve it for the duration of our shoot—so I guess he was allowed to wreck things.
After the golf cart tour was a sunset cruise on the resort’s sportfishing yacht, Cole’s jocularity greater with every cup of rum. I don’t generally drink when I’m working, but I was stressed enough by the full day behind us, I acquiesced to his pleas and downed a fruity cocktail with him as we sped past dolphins into the tangerine sky. I could tell the captain, a fit Black guy about my age, was less than impressed by my boss’s antics, his relaxed smile growing a little tighter every time Cole slapped him on the back and tried for the wheel, shouting, “Let’s see how fast this thing can go!” But Cole himself was none the wiser, slinging an arm around the guy’s shoulders and reminiscing about their past fishing trips like a commander recalling battles of long ago.
When we returned, Francisco and Ben were allowed to retreat to their rooms, but Cole insisted I join him for a chef’s choice dinner on the porch of the charming restaurant, complete with some bottle of wine he insisted
